There is something for everyone and everyone is welcome at the Mercury.
We produce and showcase exciting work that continues to engage, challenge, and entertain the diverse communities we work with across Essex, and the region, and are deeply committed that we will continue to listen, learn and improve. We recognise that we are still only at the beginning of our journey to ensuring we are inclusive.
In 2019 our theatre’s Excellence in Inclusivity was celebrated at the UK Theatre Awards, surrounded by our industry friends and peers. Winning the UK Theatre Award was wonderful recognition of all that we had been doing to make our work accessible to as many people as possible both on and off stage. However, we made a very public promise on that day that winning this award was just the beginning of our journey and we have always acknowledged that we still have a very long way to go to continue improving in the years ahead.
This award recognised our progress embracing diverse casting, supporting national initiatives, and building strong relationships with the community through our learning and participation programmes. We are engaged members of PiPA (Parents and Carers in Performing Arts) and early adopters of the Inc Arts Charter -moving forwards, we will be using their Unlock campaign to make positive changes. We ensure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as they can be, using individual and group interaction, as well as the option of submitting applications by video.
Our commitment to casting own voices
Mercury Theatre would like to make a commitment to our creatives and audiences alike that we cast our productions with care, and we strive to ensure we are maintaining a welcoming and supportive community. When staging a play, we commit to making every effort possible to audition and cast actors that represent the voices and roles they will be playing on stage – be that because of ethnicity, gender, disability, etc. We are also committed to supporting these voices in backstage roles as creatives. We acknowledge that we will not always get it right, and we will apologise if we get it wrong. We are learning. We intend to keep learning. We recognise that this is a journey, and these are first steps.
In July 2021, the Mercury Theatre signed and committed to the official Trans Casting Statement, alongside other leading organisations. The full statement can be found here.
For visiting companies we use the Anti-Racism Touring Rider to improve their experience while in Colchester.
We have taken part in a national initiative, The Sustained Theatre Regional Associate Producer Placement (STRAPP) (led by Tamasha and funded by the Arts Council England) to ensure that we placed diversity in our decision making roles and our regional Associate Producer Dilek Latif expanded our thinking and reimagined the way in which the theatre delivers its programming and engagement activities across the communities we serve. Dilek chose to produce two shows in 2019 that appealed to communities where we had previously seen lower engagement with our work.
The second of these productions, performed in our main house, was Ain’t Misbehavin’. The 10 strong cast and band were all artists of colour, but Dilek ensured that the creative team was equally diverse. It was Tyrone Huntley’s first directing opportunity (and gained a well-deserved The Stage Debut Award nomination) Oti Mabuse’s first theatre show as choreographer and a young member of the Mercury staff of South Asian heritage was offered a paid mentorship as Associate Lighting Designer. Thanks to arranging a co-production with Paul Taylor Mills Ltd, the show transferred to Southwark Playhouse and was nominated for five awards. Both this and Silence, a play about the polish community by Nicola Werenowska that toured following its sell-out run in our Studio, were productions that the Mercury and all its local communities can be truly proud of.
During 2020, we continued to make progress in actively engaging and including communities, as we sought new ways to maintain our relationships with young, elderly, and diverse communities across the region throughout the delivery of our free online activities, including a diverse selection of BSL signed Masterclasses and professional training for playwrights and emerging artists from all backgrounds .
We have formed strong relationships with representatives from the minority communities around us and continue to support professional artists, writers, and performers at the Mercury to enhance awareness of cultural and faith contexts and building trust and communication. This enables us to play an active role in the community and identify and undertake any training needed to assist other professionals and develop our own understanding, work and sharing.
We facilitate Scratch Nights for underrepresented artists, where most recently we invited 20 ethnically diverse seniors to work with us to hear their stories performed on stage in a project called #OneOfUs. The community were interviewed discussing their relationship with Colchester. Mini stories were then put on takeaway boxes/coffee cups and given out to members of the public, inviting them to share their story. The project ran to celebrate unheard voices and tell untold journeys from people in Colchester. The stories reached at least 12,000 people promoting inclusivity and fostering a sense of belonging.
Our Aspire Club Nights – designed for young people aged 7-18 with special educational needs and disabilities proved a success; we delivered exciting debating and public speaking workshops to the Afriuk Youth Group, celebrated International Mother Tongue day and joined the committee for the annual Rice Festival, which is a wonderful opportunity for all the community to come together to celebrate cultural diversity.
